


The Devil’s In The Details; Or, A Brief Sexual History of Frank No-Middle-Name Doyle

by secretsofluftnarp (luftie)



Series: Boudoir Stories [4]
Category: Beyond Belief - Fandom, The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Backstory, Catholic Guilt, Dating Doyles, Humiliation kink, Love, Masochism, Multi, Queer Themes, bisexual Frank Doyle, consensual adult BDSM stuff, consensual teenage sexual stuff, drinking (obvs)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:59:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5377808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luftie/pseuds/secretsofluftnarp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sadie literally holds a paddle, which brings up some surprisingly vivid memories from Frank’s past regarding sexuality, sadomasochism, and love. </p><p>Takes place right after Part 3 of this series (they have recently begun cohabiting).</p><p>Mad love to amazing beta lalalalalawhy, even more than usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Sadie Literally Holds A Paddle

Frank was looking at the door with a level of suspicion usually reserved for people rather than inanimate objects. It hadn't made a sound -- or rather, no one had made a sound on it, for at least the last few minutes -- but seeing as it had recently given way to any number of unanticipated knocks, clunks, and muffled pleas for help, it really wasn't to be trusted.  
  


“Can I interest you in a distraction?” Sadie asked, holding two more martini glasses than she had been a moment ago.  


“Three parts gin, one part more gin? Of course.” Frank couldn’t help but smile as he took a glass from Sadie, clinked it with hers, and immediately downed the contents. “Sadie, do you find it disturbing how many uninvited guests we’ve had in the relatively short time we’ve cohabited this apartment, which is on top of what at least  _appears_ to be a very tall and somewhat inaccessible building?”  


“Have we?” Sadie mused. “We  _did_ just meet a sad-sack foreign aristocrat with a ghost problem --”

  
Frank flung his non-drink-holding arm in exasperation. “WHO CARES what’s rotten in the state of Denmark! We have modern refrigeration nowadays! And _then_ we had to redirect the ghost of a wandering submarine crewman--”  
  


Sadie put a hand to her heart. “Oh I  _do_ hope he finds Captain Nemo.”  


“And then there was that business with the escapees from the zoo and the unlicensed snake charmer. Load of unnecessary trouble that was.”  
  
  
“Yes,” Sadie said slowly. “I don’t believe _his_ anaconda wanted _any_.”  
  


“And yet once said snake became dangerously possessed, you made short work of it.” There was nothing but admiration in Frank’s voice. “Sadie, I have never _seen_ such casually effective violence.”  


“Only because I thought you were in danger, darling,” Sadie said, running her fingers through Frank’s hair. “We ought to watch out, lest we make a name for ourselves.”  Her voice was low, and pleasant, and she was draping her arms around him. Well, Frank thought, if a few completely unnecessary adventures pleased Sadie, the pleasing Sadie part was all right with him. He was being steered backward toward the bedroom, which was definitely all right with him.  


“We put a drinks cart in the bedroom!” Frank exclaimed. “How perspicacious of us!”  


Sadie was dancing him back toward the bed when her heel thumped against something at its foot. “Perhaps,” Sadie mused, “we ought to have a peek inside the treasure box.”  


Frank smiled, touching his forehead to Sadie’s, glancing below her waist. “I’ve never heard you call it _that_ before.”  


Sadie giggled. “Perhaps in a bit. Here’s what I meant.” She pushed aside some fabric to reveal a wooden trunk, and snapped it open. There were a few old photographs, some well-thumbed paperback books, but most noticeably a couple of riding crops, a blindfold, a length of coiled rope, and a pair of handcuffs.  


The trunk also held a gorgeous inlaid leather paddle, which Sadie caught Frank staring at. “This old thing?” she asked, playfully, spinning it between her fingers. “Why, has someone been naughty?”  


_Unquestionably_ , Frank wanted to say, but with the right amount of verve that meant _please tackle me, we’ll work out the details later_. He also wanted to say, _you are so beautiful. I am yours entirely_. But he couldn’t say all of those things at once, and nothing came out.

  
He’d known he was in love, it was obvious, but he was suddenly afraid of just how much. Being with Sadie had been easy, natural, like nothing else in his life had been. Now he was aware that the all-consuming adoration he felt for her could shatter him, smother him, and he would be helpless to do anything about it.

He'd been in love before, just the once, and he'd had the tar kicked out of him for pleasure's sake, a fair few times, but never at the  _same_ time. If the two combined, Frank don't know what would happen. He had the sudden urge to lie down at Sadie's feet and never get up, but he also had the sense that she might find said action alarming.

  
“Darling,” Frank said after a pause, “I need a moment.”

  
“A refill?” Sadie offered gently, although his glass was still half-full.  
  
“Certainly.”  
  
“One long, slow, thoughtful refill, coming up a few minutes from now,” Sadie said, and left the room.

“Great,” Frank said, to no one in particular. “A _nested flashback sequence_.”


	2. Your Lips To God’s Ears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young (bisexual, Catholic) Frank Doyle gets into trouble during his church years. 
> 
> Contains consensual teenage sexual stuff.

“Idleness is the soil into which temptation takes root,” Father Lancaster proclaimed from the pulpit. He was looking straight at wiry, seventeen-year-old Frank, and Frank, mortified, knew exactly why.

  
It had started with the arrival of Oscar, the new cantor. He was practically Frank’s age, with wild eyes and a soaring tenor and trouble keeping his eyes off Frank. Once Frank noticed, he had trouble keeping his eyes off Oscar too.

  
Frank waited in the back of the church one night after choir rehearsal dispersed, turned toward the rows of candles on the bye-altar, pretending to be lost in thought, or prayer, or something equally acceptable. Oscar sidled up next to him, introduced himself, and asked him what he did all day.

  
“I fight,” Frank said, both proud and deeply embarrassed for reasons he didn’t quite understand.

  
Oscar raised both eyebrows, the candle-lights glinting in his dark eyes. “Like the inscription,” Frank rambled on, indicating one of the many Prayers to St. Michael littered on cards around Old St. Mike’s. “Heavenly army, defending the the church in battle, casting Satan into the abyss so he can no longer seduce the nations --”

  
Frank was very aware that he had just said _seduce_.

  
“We actually do that here,” Frank continued, ears hot. “Demon slaying. But mostly I read, when there isn’t any fighting.”

  
“Neat,” Oscar whispered, smiling. “Fight me.”  
  


Frank was suddenly sharply disappointed, that he might have to stab Oscar -- but Oscar was doing the opposite of springing into action, he was backing himself into a wall, and Frank’s body was up against his, wondering how it had gotten there.

  
Frank pinned Oscar’s arms to the wall with his own, and Oscar laughed a little, egging him on. Frank panicked, wondering if they were alone -- but they were, and he was left wondering whether the bemused eyes of the Virgin Mary statue on the bye-altar disapproved of their now clearly noticeable erections. Thinking about _that_ only seemed to make Frank harder. Frank pushed any care to the back of his mind, and kissed Oscar, just because he was beautiful, just because he could.  
  
  
Oscar leaned into the kiss, swooning, and then angled his hips so that his erection was very noticeable against Frank’s body. Frank pushed back -- he could hardly do otherwise. He didn’t think he was possessed; he had been possessed before and it had been harsh and painful, turning his limbs in directions they didn’t want to go, not warm and pleasant like this. Oscar felt warm and human but not so warm as to arouse suspicion… just other things. Oscar fought his hands free and they were on Frank’s back, and his lips were still on his lips, and Frank had heard the expression _hot and heavy_ before but _now_ it made sense.   
  
  
Frank pushed until he felt the warm rush of orgasm course through him, breath panting, heart fast. He wanted to hold Oscar, take him with him, but Oscar started, eyes wide. He had heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and before Frank could figure out how Oscar had even evaded his grasp, he darted like a rabbit toward the exit, past a backlit, shadowy figure.

  
Frank turned, which was a mistake. Someone was coming toward them with a lantern bright enough to illuminate the entire back half of the church, which included the large, wet, visible blot on the front of Frank’s trousers.

  
It was Father Lancaster, on his evening rounds. It was, without a doubt, the worst possible thing that could have happened.

  
Father Lancaster looked at Frank just long enough to make it clear that he had seen the entire evidence of trouble, and then turned brusquely away. “Not you, Frank,” Father Lancaster pronounced loudly and flatly, taking sweeping steps toward the exit. “You’re  _much too valuable_ for that.”

 

 

Frank attempted to go into hiding for the next few days, at least, as much as hiding as he could do when he had the only bed in an otherwise empty and haunted former orphanage, sandwiched between a church hall and nun’s quarters. He took to hiding in the library even more than usual, which wasn't any good either, because suddenly everything he read was full of smothering sexual relevance. He found an illustrated book on the bondage and interrogation of witches, which seemed to feature an awful lot of redundant drawings of naked ladies in an excessive amount of anatomical detail, and it distressed him that he was drawn to the pictures. He noticed that pictures of St. Sebastian always seemed to depict said saint lazing around shirtless. He found several mentions of homosexuality as _crimen pessimum_ , the worst crime, which really didn’t seem fair, but Frank hated the idea that he had weakened himself for battle, which did seem plausible.

  
Frank had come to the church with equal parts fear and skepticism. But after he had seen Father Lancaster charge into a roomful of demons and eviscerate the bunch, howling from the Book of Revelations and carrying a _literal flaming sword_ , he figured there really was something to the holiness approach. Frank had seen enough to convince him that hell was a _thing_ , and that there were several concrete steps he could take to keep himself out of it, and that he really would prefer to.

  
Frank wondered if there were some kind of self-punishment penance he could do so that he never had to speak of what happened again. He looked into self-flagellation, but the depictions aroused him. He tried confining himself to a bare room with no imagery in it whatsoever, but he could overhear Sister Mary talking delightedly and in great detail about strapping a man-sized demon to a rack, which, to his confusion, also aroused him. He tried stealing a candle from the bye-altar and pouring the hot wax on his skin, which was so unexpectedly counterproductive that he had to try it a few more times, just to be sure. But then, he had stolen something, so the sin didn’t even cancel out.  


He couldn’t avoid Father Lancaster forever. “You. Office. Now,” Sister Mary had snapped, in a voice that indicated that she would otherwise drag him in by the ear. In the office, Father Lancaster was lining up his calendar of saint’s days and pagan festivals, cross-checking them with grimoires, looking for when trouble might next strike.

  
Father Lancaster mumbled the details of the next mission, something about how goblins tend to get very cranky as spring turns to summer, but Frank barely listened. “Oscar's been transferred,” Father Lancaster said finally, without looking up from his papers. Frank hadn't asked. “Don't worry,” he continued. “We're going to be getting a girl.”

Catherine -- “the girl,” as Father Lancaster put it -- had been found hammering her fists on the door of a nunnery across town, but the Sisters there had written to say that her _particular set of skills_ might be of interest to Old St. Mike’s, given their slightly bloodier mission. Catherine’s backstory was complicated -- demons had hurt her family, or they were her family, and anyway her family was _the worst_ and she was out to seek the Holy Light instead. She knew a lot about demons and fallen angels as told in scripture, but hadn’t yet practiced as Frank had: no inventory of exorcism tools, no hours of poring over apocrypha looking for extra hints of how to actually wound said demon forces. (Frank had found that some apocrypha were frustratingly vague; Father Lancaster kept a great deal of texts which he deemed too dangerous or too pagan stowed in his personal library, and Frank suspected that these were a bit more specific). Catherine was incredible at archery, but there were only so many blessed objects one could turn into arrows before one ran out of blessed objects.

More worryingly, Father Lancaster didn’t seem invested in training Catherine in the more practical aspects of fighting. He might have meant the responsibility to fall to Sister Mary Torquemada, who was more than adequately vicious, but Sister Mary seemed preoccupied; she had been hoping for another recruit for the nunnery, and whatever she had been looking for, Catherine apparently wasn’t it.

So Frank took it on himself to help Catherine figure out how not to get murdered, which seemed important. They would argue about approaches, sometimes, and were too proud to concede a point, often, but they made a good team when danger struck -- teeth on edge, hands gripping weapons so tight they trembled, but a team nonetheless.

Catherine was obsessed with staying holy, being holy. Frank secretly wasn’t sure whether he could. Temptation in idleness, he repeated to himself. Get out there and kill something.

 

  
They found ways to amuse themselves between missions, in the odd and sudden absence of adult supervision. Catherine declined to explore much of the city -- she spoke of _Lower Manhattan_ in hushed tones, as if even mentioning such an unholy place was sinful in itself -- but they found gardens and graveyards to explore that were safe (in fact, graveyards were often some of the safest places, everyone who was resting in peace was actually resting, and everyone who wasn’t was somewhere else entirely), and adequately holy songs to sing in the great, barreling acoustics of the often-empty church hall. Frank wondered what it was that he was supposed to be doing with himself -- was he supposed to find a seminary, plan on becoming another Father Lancaster, given that that was what he knew how to do? He was less worried about _crimen pessimum_ \-- that was a lie, he was still fairly worried about it -- but he noticed the way his heart leapt when Catherine was around, and how he had started to dream of her when she wasn’t, and thought that might be a larger barrier to pursuit of the priesthood. Maybe he could learn to play the organ.   


Frank and Catherine professed their love for each other while sitting cross-legged on a stone casket, enjoying an unusually warm spring day. “Of course I love you,” Frank said. “I can’t believe I never said that.” Which was awkward, because he wanted to kiss her, but that hadn’t been a very good lead-in.   
  
“ _Frank_ ,” Catherine had said, somewhat impatiently, in the resulting silence. It turned out she had wanted to kiss him anyway, and did. Frank was impossibly happy, but couldn’t quite show it, as she kept at it.

“Hey, I’m trynna get some eternal rest in here,” a voice said crankily from below. They both ignored it.

 

 

As they started to spend their time together holding hands and kissing quite a lot, Catherine seemed to double down on the holiness talk, always carrying a memento of some kind, always finding a reason to pause to pray. She found a pair of saint’s medals, one for Francis and one for Catherine, and had them carry each other’s. Frank thought there might be a message in all of this, that Catherine might also be thinking about the sort of deep, visceral, sins-of-the-body thoughts that wouldn’t leave Frank alone.

  
“Frank, I need your help,” Catherine said, out of the blue one day. She seemed stressed.

  
“Is Henry bothering you?” Frank said wearily. Henry was the ghost of a child who haunted the former orphanage, and nobody knew exactly what he wanted. Frank thought he was harmless, but annoying. “Look, you just tell him in a very stern voice to finish his porridge, and he’ll be so confused that he’ll forget he died several decades ago and no longer eats.”

  
“No, not him. Frank, do you have confessions which you can’t bring to the confessional?”

  
Frank, having several, was wary of this line of questioning. “It sounds like you do.”

  
“Yes,” Catherine said, twisting her hair, looking everywhere but directly at him. “I was thinking -- if God hears everything, I can just tell you instead.”  


_If God hears everything, why tell anyone_ , Frank thought but didn’t say. “Catherine, I’d be happy to help.”

  
She brought a card with notes to the small chapel the next day, attempting to read it to Frank while her hand shook. “Solitary sexual thoughts aren’t sins, but ‘deliberately giving them your salacious attention’ is -- “

  
Frank decided not to focus on what that might look like, in Catherine’s case, because the idea alone was incredible, but on her voice. She sounded like she wanted help more than anything, and she wanted to know she was all right, and Frank knew that feeling.

  
“Catherine,” Frank said reassuringly, “we’re in love. Good, honest, man-woman love that isn’t an affront to God at all. It’s all right to want to …” Frank tried to look for an off-the-cuff biblical justification and failed. “...express it.”

  
“Yes,” Catherine said, brightening, clearly searching, as he had been, for a hook to hang her hopes on. “And if we break any rules, we come right back here and say our Hail Marys about it.”

  
Frank decided that was more than good.

  
“You said ‘man-woman love,’” Catherine said, and waited for Frank to explain himself.  


 

 

Frank took a deep breath and offered something like a real confession. At least, he vaguely alluded to kissing a boy once, probably.

Catherine seemed more surprised and worried than Frank thought she probably ought to be, but maybe she was right. He wished he hadn’t said anything. She took his hand and told him they could get through it together.

  
  


 

They came back to the chapel almost every day, with thorough apologies to God for a wandering hand, a wandering eye, a kiss too long and lustful.

  
Outside the chapel, they reassured each other that love was an act of God, sometimes several times a minute.

  
_Forgive me_ , they both murmured, as Frank’s hands traced the outlines of Catherine’s breasts.

  
_I'm sorry_ , Frank said earnestly, as he came helpless and hot in her hand.

  
Their prayers became longer and faster and made less sense. “Save us from...hearts of darkness, in the eyeballs of Satan,” Catherine said, scrambling for words she hadn’t said before.

 

“Love doesn’t have Satan’s eyeballs,” Frank said, aware that he was making even less sense.

 

They wanted to sleep together, and they both said so, and the dumb, dull heat of summer made it seem all the more urgent. Frank decided he was going to figure out what the ghost-child Henry wanted, so that he and Catherine could be guaranteed a night alone with a bed. He wracked his brain madly for a week, and then, in exasperation, dropped a bowl of oatmeal on an adjacent floor so it shattered. “There you go, Henry,” Frank said. “Ghost porridge. Happy?” Oddly enough, it worked.

  
They undressed each other quietly, hands running softly over each other, nervous about what came next. Frank climbed on top of Catherine inexpertly, all arms and legs. He didn’t deserve her, he thought, there was no way he possibly could, but when he looked at her he saw kindness and only a tiny amount of fear. “I love you,” he said out loud, teasing her with his fingers. _I will keep you safe_ , he said to himself. She put her legs at his sides and he eased into her. She stiffened, and he almost panicked again, that she might be hurt. But Catherine relaxed, and smiled, which Frank saw and felt, and he lost it immediately, the quick shoot of his orgasm, the arousal followed almost immediately by shame. Frank withdrew and pushed his fingers up against her instead, in slow circles at first, then moving faster, suddenly desperate to bring back her smile. _Please stay with me. Please keep loving me back._

 

 

The turn of the season brought more things to fight in the dark, and less time on their own together. Father Lancaster’s temper seemed even shorter than usual; perhaps he had noticed that his fairly small army was getting much less efficient, and perpetually distracted by each other. Maybe that was why he decided they were ready for their own missions, to scare them back into taking the Lord’s work seriously. Frank could never be sure.

  
Which is how they wound up going after a Calaca, on the Day of the Dead, on -- to Catherine’s horror -- the Lower East Side, without Father Lancaster or even Sister Mary to accompany them. Father Lancaster said there had been a disturbance -- he didn’t elaborate -- and that Frank and Catherine were more than powerful enough to pray it away, which was how they ended up on the scene, unarmed. Frank figured the mission was busy work, probably, which was why he let Catherine get ahead of him while he was distracted by the sartorial choices of some actors suiting up for a production of _Don Juan Tenorio_.

  
By the time Frank reached Catherine, she was already locked in a dance with the chattering, eyeless bag of bones. He shouted and Catherine didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, and the terrible dead-eyed (non-eyed) thing that held her was shaking with laughter, and before Frank could fathom what to do next, the two disappeared in a swirling cloud of awful dust.

He was certain she was dead. He was also certain that she didn’t have to _stay_ dead. The thing that had her was definitely dead, and she was with it, and that thing could be beaten. Frank went barrelling back to the church, knocking over anyone and anything in his path. _Tell me what that was and how to kill it_ , Frank demanded. Frank chose not to remember that Father Lancaster seemed almost pleased at the fire returned to Frank’s eyes.

Nobody contested giving Frank the pistol with the silver bullet, normally reserved for werewolf defense. Nobody said _are you sure about giving the kid a gun_ or _shame, the girl was the better marksman_ because that was irrelevant; Frank was going to kill it. He shot it in the sternum in front of a crowd of onlookers, typical mission confidentiality be damned. The crowd gasped, fell silent, and were beginning a cheer when Frank pushed to the center of the crowd, toward the now-disconnected pile of bones, kicked its sombrero aside, and began swinging at the skull with the butt of the pistol. The crowd lowered its almost-cheer to a murmur, turning away, pretended there was nothing to see. Frank smashed in the nose-hole of the dead skull with his heel, disconnected its jaw, dislocated its joints. The show of violence didn’t make him feel better, but the satisfying crunch of blind rage felt infinitely better than helpless disbelief.

  
She would be back in a year, Frank knew, and in that time, Frank decided he was going to make sure they were unbeatable.

 

 

“Hey. Kid,” Sister Mary said the evening of his return, much more casually than she had ever spoken to him in his life. She was sitting at a round table in the nun’s quarters with nothing on it but a large bottle of whiskey and several shot glasses. It was an invitation, and it was the only thing that made sense.

  
“Praise be to Scotch,” Frank said, lifting a glass in a halfhearted toast. Their glasses didn’t clink.

  
From that point on, the first thing was drink. The second thing was building up his athleticism, which Frank shouldn’t have been quite so good at while so very drunk, but the alcohol seemed to make him clear and focused while he was running laps around the grounds or doing midnight handsprings down the church hall or parrying with one of the more compliant poltergeists. The third thing was knowledge, and he wanted all of it, even that which had been forbidden to him. He began saying his devotionals daily, as an apology for seeking forbidden knowledge, just in case prayer _was_ how he was going to get Catherine back, which almost seemed feasible. The thing that took her wasn’t of this church’s God at all, so maybe this God would see fit to help. And Frank believed, for a time, that he was a warrior of the Holy Spirit (he’d say, as he poured himself yet another drink).

  
But seeking said forbidden knowledge meant using his newfound physical strength to scale the outer wall of the church tower and break into Father Lancaster’s secret study; it meant that what he found there was not only of the darkly dangerous variety (sure, there was a book bound in human skin, sure, there was one that literally burned to the touch), but also folk tales that undermined or contradicted scripture, words from places where the Crusaders themselves were the monsters. He found the names and addresses of local occultists, and sought them out, found out if they drank, pretended to be a university student out to learn the trade. He lied his way into local libraries, inspecting their dustiest books. He also lied to Father Lancaster and Sister Mary about his whereabouts, doubled his devotionals to cancel out the lying, and always made it back in time to drink.

  
Sister Mary finally got her new trainee, Sister Kate, who was barely older than Frank and exceptionally willing to get her hands dirty. She didn’t drink as much as Sister Mary or Frank did (no one drank as much as Frank did), but she sat around the table with them, gazing at Sister Mary with a devotion that didn’t quite seem appropriate, occasionally noticing Frank’s developing physique in a way that _definitely_ did not seem appropriate, urging that she and Sister Mary retire to Sister Mary’s quarters much sooner than would be appropriate. Frank didn’t know whether taboos against homosexuality applied to women, and if Father Lancaster had noticed, it apparently didn’t bother him.

  
None of this mattered to Frank, because he had figured out exactly when and where Catherine was going to be allowed to return. He planned his return to the same Lower East Side neighborhood, on the Day of the Dead -- heavily armed, just in case, but confident that he wouldn’t need it, confident that Catherine would reappear, mercifully free of her empty-eyed monster. He’d prepared himself to expect that she might look different, that the temporarily dead sometimes looked gaunt, or had a dullness in their eyes from witnessing what they ought not yet have seen; he’d thought of half a dozen ways to tell her that this didn’t matter, that what mattered was how much they loved each other, and that they were going to make the most of her return to life.

  
  


She didn’t come back. Frank spent the entirety of Dia de los Muertos near the spot where she had been taken, until it was midnight and the time for spirits to return had run out. He couldn’t believe it, but he had to. This was Catherine’s window to return to this world, and she hadn’t come back.

  
Father Lancaster, who heard everything, heard Frank returning late, and Frank told him the truth. He’d been waiting for Catherine. and Catherine hadn’t returned. Frank became aware of the stinging in his eyes that he had been ignoring for the entire trek back.

  
“She died in service to the church,” Father Lancaster said, his voice detached and distant.

  
“She shouldn’t have died at all,” Frank said, surprised at how true the words escaping his mouth were. “You _knew_ how to protect her. _Us_.”

  
“Our Lord works in mysterious ways,” Father Lancaster said in the same distant voice.

  
“That is an outrageous thing to say!” Frank had lost any sense of the discipline and decorum he had employed during the past year; it clearly hadn’t gotten him anywhere. “You call yourselves God-fearing, Christ-loving --”

  
“Francis, you forget yourself,” Father Lancaster started.

  
“No, I most certainly do  _not_ ,” Frank interjected. “There is a whole lot in that book you take so seriously about _compassion_ and minding what you do to the least of your brethren, and I don’t believe you ever had a handle on that in the first place.”

  
Father Lancaster’s voice stayed even, but there was a lurking darkness behind it now. “It also says to obey the authorities God has chosen.”

 

“Ha!” It was the bitterest laugh of Frank’s life. “First Timothy, chapter five, verse eight. _But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever._ How has providing for this house been going? It seems to have failed miserably in the upkeep!” Frank threw down one of his less useful crucifixes, his pockets still jingling with concealed weapons. “I do pronounce myself an unbeliever, but I declare that you are even worse.”

  
“Sure, go out into the world, why don’t you,” Father Lancaster intoned, no less steadily, but a little louder. “You’ll hardly last out there, knowing so little of the true nature of the world --”

  
“WHO CARES what evil lurks in the hearts of men if this is how you treat those you are charged to care for!”

  
Father Lancaster said nothing, twisting his face around words that failed to form.

 

“And you,” Frank said, pointing to the statue of the Virgin Mary on the bye-altar, “you were right about me. I therefore _forgive_ you for looking so _smug_.”

  
Frank threw open the heavy church doors and charged out into the night, concealed weapons supply clanking against his legs.

  
“You’ll get what’s coming to you,” Father Lancaster intoned from the interior.

  
“I’ll be ready when I do!”

   
Frank had no idea where he was headed. He did know that he wasn’t going to pretend to be good any more.


	3. Lower Manhattan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-church Frank dabbles in the underworld-y and possibly otherworldly.

Frank found the seeming depths of Lower Manhattan suited his tastes. There was sin, sure, but also copious amounts of alcohol, and he cared slightly more about the latter. He eventually found a dusty apartment to stay in when the bars weren’t open, and plenty of targets for his offhand cynicism.

“Don’t talk to me about belief,” Frank told a street preacher. “I’m beyond it.”

Once Frank had found a little bit of material success as a freelance monster hunter, and invested in outfits that passed well enough for classy (and a meticulously trimmed moustache), it was surprisingly easy to pick up men in bars, and the occasional woman who would take him home to tell him he wasn’t anything serious. He learned to look for people who were like him, who were more interested in a drink and a bit of fun (but really, that drink) than any sort of romantic attachment.

Frank remembered one bar encounter in particular, that even now his mind would return to from time to time. The bar had been dark, and uncrowded. Frank had approached a bulky, affable stranger whose frame loomed much larger than his own, and there was something about that which Frank liked.

“Care to step out for a smoke?” Frank asked with a sly smile. Then, realizing the opacity of his innuendo, he revised it. “I mean fellatio.”

The stranger paused, eyeing him with amusement. Frank worried for one terrible second that the stranger didn’t know what kind of bar he was in (or worse, he was a cop). But the man only chuckled, shook his head a little, and then clapped one surprisingly large hand on Frank’s back with friendly but unexpected force, and led him outside.  

Frank told himself he hadn’t intended to be the one who wound up kneeling (though he’d stolen a cloth napkin from the bar, so as not to scuff his trousers, just in case), but working his lips around the larger gentleman's smaller gentleman made him feel small, and soothed, and Frank suspected he looked very attractive doing it. While Frank's mouth was full, the stranger had pushed one of his great ham-hock hands to the back of Frank's head, hard, and something cool and metallic -- a bit of jewelry?-- had pushed into his neck. The pressure didn't feel good, but the sense of being controlled by a stranger who could damn well probably snap his neck gave Frank a hard-on he couldn't ignore. He would imagine that specific heavy-handed sensation later, when he was alone, and sometimes when he wasn’t.

 

Present-day Frank shifted on the bed and out of reverie. He’d noticed a few things: that his glass was actually empty now, that the thought of the broad-shouldered stranger from so many years ago could still make his skin feel hot, that Sadie was still in the other room, and that he was still sitting next to Sadie’s Box of Intriguing and Possibly Dangerous Toys. Frank took an entire bottle of gin from the nightstand and began pouring it into a pint glass. Where was he? Right. _Other times he’d gotten beaten up_.

 

When The Gang was in full swing -- PJ and Red Wolf and himself kicking the nightlights out of monsters and bragging about it -- Frank spent some nights face-deep in some French girl (Yvonne? Yvette? A wine drinker, of all things, but that was another story[1]), who would throw him out, on a whim, and invite him back, on a whim. It hadn’t been good, but he hadn’t been good either, and it had been exciting, if also miserable, to wonder whether he was in for affection (which he didn’t deserve), or insults (which he sometimes deserved, and often enjoyed).  
  
“Dames is trouble,” PJ said, knowingly, when Frank and what’s-her-face finally called it quits after a matter of weeks.

Frank squinted at this sentiment, in non-agreement. “No, but I don’t think I like wine.”

In cool contrast to Wine Girl was Valeria, who Frank wished he could say he’d found on purpose. He hadn’t -- she’d been winning a drinking contest that Frank wasn’t involved in. Vodka, which was more than acceptable. Also, she looked like she could kill him. Frank wasn’t feeling competitive in this crowd. He’d just noticed his type.

Valeria was wearing a black cape with the hood thrown back. She had disarming cheekbones and a manner of effortlessly enjoying the spotlight. She was laughing loudly, and with abandon, at her challengers, and looked as if she could crush glass in her sharp, metallic-looking nails.

“Tell me your purpose or leave,” she said, when she noticed Frank’s eyes on her.

Direct. Frank liked that. “I was wondering how I might get to know you better.”

“I require tribute,” she said cooly.

“I have some,” Frank said, fairly sure she meant money and not a slice of his soul, which, upon reflection, he wasn’t really using anyway. He was relatively sure of the sort of transaction which was taking place. She slid a lightly smoking business card across the bar.

_Valerie is a harsh mistress_ , the card read. Frank liked the directness of that too.

Frank also noticed, as Valeria raised her face upwards again, the presence of what might have been small, nubby horns on her forehead. Frank wasn't about to ask if those were real. He had manners, after all.

A very specific sort of shiver ran through him at the the implication. He wasn’t at all afraid for his life. In all likelihood, she was a sharply attired human woman with a carefully cultivated persona. But _what if_ the harsh angles of her skull were something cursed and ancient, _what if_ that perfect silver manicure hid talons that could actually tear him apart?

Frank knew that someone with any sense of self-preservation would have walked away. Frank also knew he was far too curious for that.

Which was how Frank found himself, naked, kneeling, with his head bowed almost to Valeria’s sitting-room carpet. It was a position of near-devil-worship, and the perversity of it prickled his excitement, which was embarrassing, which just made it worse. Valeria, standing over him, had barely said anything, and let him lay there until his body ached, until the hot sweat of embarrassment turned cold.

“Turn over,” she said, finally, the tap of a riding crop on his shoulder instructing him to turn onto his back. Someone who cared might even have been impressed at how he looked, stretched out and supine, but Frank knew she did not. Valeria ground a sharp stiletto into the meat of his shoulder, and Frank forced himself to hold back from wincing in pain until he couldn’t any more, crying out sharply, his exposed cock full and twitching from the sensation. She laughed a short, derisive laugh. “You’ll do nicely.”

Most of Frank’s time with Valeria involved him bound and naked, with her fully clothed in something black and skintight, standing just out of reach. She would tie him up and drink her vodka martinis in front of him, while he groaned at the cruelty of such teasing. She would blindfold him and open a window, letting the cold air turn his bare skin into gooseflesh, running her cold, sharp nails into his back and thighs, never quite knowing if the curtain was open, never quite knowing if he had an audience. She would tie him on all fours and make him her foot-stool, or worse, a place to set her drinks where he obviously couldn’t reach. Once, she had left her half-full martini glasses on his back and gotten up to answer the door, while Frank, helpless and erect, sweated out the humiliating possibility of someones walking in. The voices did eventually leave without entering, but the lone orgasm Frank was allowed to rub out at the end of a session (while Valeria rolled her eyes and disparaged his technique), came so strong and sudden that it took Frank several minutes to catch his breath.

She was good about pain -- dropping the persona, putting a steady hand to his back to check in before flipping him over a piece of furniture for a good, hard flogging. That much, for Frank, was an indulgence, a catharsis that made him feel as if he floated gently to the floor afterward. It was only after the second or third time, when the novelty began to wear off, that Frank remembered that despite all he knew about humanoid demonic types, he really didn’t know what she could be. Her hands were always cold, which made her less likely to belong to a hell dimension. She never removed her shoes, but one could hardly fit hooves or talons in such narrow stilettos. Frank thought it was likely, given how she narrowed her black-green eyes sometimes, that her tongue really was forked, but he never had the opportunity to find out.

She did fuck him -- from behind, herself fully clothed, with a sleek detachable phallus she called The Viper. She pushed him up against the wall, against the exposed fireplace brick, and Frank had to brace himself with his arms to avoid abrasions on his face or chest or delicate parts. The hand on his neck that time was a threat, a reminder of how easily she could easily harm him by closing her fingers. He felt what could have been a mouth on his neck, something sharp that could have been a second row of teeth, set inside the other, lamprey-like.

 

 

“My! Frank, while I think you’d make an adorable ottoman, deep sea vampire fish teeth are a different _story_.”

“Sadie! Have I been _narrating_ to you this whole time?”

“Oh no, you’ve been having some nice quiet flashback time to yourself. Don't worry, I was keeping an eye on you. You have only been speaking it aloud since the devil in stilettos. Which -- I do believe I would read that mystery novel, and watch the TV movie adaptation.”

Frank was surprised at himself. Normally he would scoff, deny, insist that nobody ought to know those details, but he found himself glad -- nay, relieved -- that Sadie did.

“So what became of tall, dark and nefarious?” Sadie inquired.

“Once the Gang split up I ran out of money, notoriety, the will to do anything enjoyable, really. There was one instance, during the darkest of the dark time, where I thought that if anything could slap me back to a state of being able to feel something, she could. Which is why I went and scraped up some money I didn’t have.”

“Could she?”

“No, but that wasn't her fault.”

Frank described asking Valeria to do her worst -- and Sadie listened, unflinchingly, which made Frank’s heart swell. When he clearly wasn’t enjoying himself,  Frank explained, he thought that Valeria should perhaps just be hitting him harder, which just left him bruised and cranky. He thought she should be meaner, but the words actually stung.

“It didn’t work, because I was miserable,” Frank explained. “There was no way around it.”

“And then?”

“About a week later, I wrote her a letter, to thank her for her services. I also told her I wouldn't be requiring them any more -- “ here he took Sadie’s hand, “-- because I had met someone.”

“I don't expect she believed me,” Frank said, giving Sadie’s hand a kiss. “It did seem almost too good to be true.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]“As a connoisseur, you’ll find I have very specific tastes. I seek a wine with structure and stability and backbone. Something brooding but which won’t tell me what’s on it’s mind. A wine that’s superior, haughty, withholding. I want a wine so fickle and baffling I’ll wake up at 3 in the morning with my fingers already fumbling on the dial of my phone to ask it what I’ve done wrong. I want a wine that disapproves of me and every choice I’ve ever made. Bring me a wine that insults me to my face and _makes me like it._ ”  
> \-- TAH 106, A Beyond Belief Valentines Day


	4. In Which Sadie Continues To Hold A Paddle

Frank considered giving Sadie her hand back, but he didn’t quite want to, and she didn’t seem to want it back, either. She was, however, regarding him with a look even saucier than she’d started out with when they entered the bedroom.

But Frank felt that something else was different, something unusual. “Sadie, did we _learn_ anything?”

“We learned that you enjoy the company of imposing women.”

“Hardly a reveal, love,” Frank said warmly, clinking his glass in a toast and drinking deep.

“Though,” Sadie mused, “I would like to hear where one acquires a Viper --”

Had Frank ever been one to spit out his drink, he might have. But he was not, and never had been.

Truthfully, Frank had learned something. Upon reflection, he knew that he trusted that Sadie wasn’t going to inexplicably abandon him, as Catherine had -- and what’s more, he didn’t believe there was any supernatural force capable of taking Sadie out. If Sadie did strike him, for pleasure’s sake, it would be with all the warmth of her love behind it, not a near-stranger’s cold derision. And as for the boys -- the sins that he didn’t actually believe were sins, any more -- Frank could have sworn that had come up, at least through offhand insinuations (“He’s not my type.” “So some gentleman are?” “Sure!”). It was bound to come up eventually.

Sadie’s hand was petting the back of his neck, rubbing in small circles; protective, not threatening. “Is there anything else I should know, darling?”

Frank was enjoying being petted. He was enjoying so very many things about Sadie being close to him again. “Just be gentle with me while you aren’t being gentle with me.”

“Of course,” Sadie said, taking another swig of drink and kissing him on the temple. “And I occasionally ask that you not be gentle with _me_. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you exactly how.”

Frank eyed the paddle again. “Sadie, I do believe I _have_ been naughty.”

“Oh?” Sadie arched an eyebrow with such precision that Frank immediately fell in love with that, too.

“The sort of naughty that, say, a talented but stern schoolmistress in wire-rimmed glasses would be absolutely scandalized to hear about, and would have _simply no choice_ but to punish a pupil for.”

Sadie laughed and waggled her eyebrows along with Frank’s, but when she rose and returned, wearing costume glasses and her hair pulled back sharply, she looked just imposing enough.

“Now _Franklin_ ,” she said in a perfectly clipped voice, “what’s this I hear about a disruption?”

Frank loved that Sadie called him _Franklin_ sometimes. It wasn’t the plain _Frank_ of his birth or the _Francis_ of his church years, just a name she had decided he ought to have, and he loved that this version of him was theirs.

“We weren’t up to anything, Miss Parker. Only -- well, I shouldn’t say it out loud.”

“Then come here and say it.”

In Sadie’s ear, Frank whispered a highly specific and sexual comment about Sadie that Adult Frank could probably have gotten away with, but which was definitely not allowed under these circumstances.

“Franklin Mint Chocolate Chip _Doyle_ ,” Sadie admonished, “that is highly inappropriate and you know it.” Sadie sat herself on the bed as though it wasn’t a bed. “Now fix you and I a drink, and then put yourself over my knee.”

“Must I, Miss Parker?”

“Rules are rules, Frank.”   
  


Frank’s upper body fit firmly on the bed, with Sadie’s hand resting on his back. Frank felt warm, secure, and held, and definitely not in mortal peril.

Sadie yanked off his pants with her other hand, letting them fall around his ankles. Frank felt flushed and pink-eared and ridiculous, but also warm and loved. Sadie giggled and pinched his bottom and swatted at it lightly, telling him he had a lovely derriere, before setting her hand against him more firmly and letting swing.

Frank tensed at the first hit and then let himself go slack. As much as they were good, hard smacks of the _that feels nice_ variety, they were also reminders of _you are here_ and _this is mine_ and _you aren’t going anywhere_. By the time Sadie picked up an implement, his hide was already pink and raw, and the paddle stung, sharp, in a way he definitely liked. She stopped short of marking him too heavily, instead running her hands back over the exposed pink places, humming in appreciation. Sadie stopped when she was finished, poured two drinks, pushed Frank back onto the bed, kissed his face, and put a martini back in his hand.

Frank slumped, drink aloft. “Sadie, you are perfect.”

“Indeed I am,” Sadie agreed, clinking her drink.

_Idleness is the soil into which temptation takes root_ , Frank remembered, from ever so long ago. He may or may not have said this aloud.

“Sadie,” Frank said aloud, “I believe I am going to get _very good_ at idleness.”

“And the temptation?”

“We’re just getting started.”

_Clink_.

 

  
**EPILOGUE; Or, The Devil You Know**   
  


“And this is my fiancee, Dave Henderson.”

Frank paused before taking Dave's great ham-hock of a hand to shake. He was certain he had seen said hand before.

“It is a medical bracelet,” Dave said, thinking Frank was distracted by the glint of silver around his wrist.

“Yes,” Donna explained. “Dave is deathly allergic to bees.”

“Have you two met?” Sadie asked, watching Frank's expression.

“Have we?” Dave mused.

“Dave _is_ a werewolf,” Donna said.

“And a police officer man man,” Sadie added. “There are several ways in which he and a supernaturalist occasionally on the wrong side of the law might've encountered each other before. Ooh, Frank, Donna, is this awkward?”

“We'll see,” Frank said, loosening his collar. “Dave, my good fellow, I don't wish to unnecessarily engage in any lupine stereotypes, but I'm going to ask that you smell me.”

Dave obliged, taking a quick, polite whiff of Frank's neck. He chuckled, and clapped a great hand on Frank's back. “This one! This one has never been on my wrong side.” He continued chortling and shaking his head.

“Am I correct in saying that we met long before you met your wife-to-be?” Frank inquired.

“Quite right.”

“Then I can say -- Sadie, I've told you how I used to frequent, well, every bar. Dave used to frequent, I believe, a few of the same.”

Dave was still shaking his head in half-belief. “You remember, little dog.”

Donna frowned. “Frank's not a werewolf.”

Dave shook his head in earnest. “No, not literally. I would go out -- as a man -- and pretend I was a big dog, and some other men, they would be like little dogs.”

Frank, who had been scrambling to keep up the slightest amount of pretense, let it fall, and found himself blushing furiously. He heard an odd, ricketing sound, and realized it was Sadie practically vibrating in her seat with excitement.

“Donna!” Sadie called, eyes wide and shining. “Frank, Donna, _imagine_ the dinner parties we could have!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frank: Do we know a Dave Henderson?  
> Sadie: He's married to my best friend, Donna Henderson and father to the Baby Henderson.  
> Frank: Eh...rings a bell...  
> Sadie: He is a police detective officer man.  
> Frank: Nearly remember him...  
> Sadie: He's occasionally a werewolf.  
> Frank: How occasionally?  
> Sadie: Once or twice a month.  
> Frank: So close now...  
> Sadie: Allergic to bees.  
> Frank: _DAVE HENDERSON!_  
>  \-- TAH episode 106


End file.
